Empathy (2008)

A new word in the lexicon in recent years is the word empathy. Empathy is the 'capacity' to share and understand another's 'state of mind' or emotion. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself. Empathy does not necessarily imply compassion, or empathic concern because this capacity can be present in context of compassionate or cruel behavior.

I first heard this word used by a commander of a large military installation when he described the gut feeling we as survivors of the Korean conflict must feel toward those in the hospitals and rehabilitation centers attempting to adjust to living without the constant fear of death. Most of us have seen the stiff frozen bodies of our comrades stacked like chord wood near the UDSM Reservoir in Korea. This word should not be news to those of us who bear the name of our savior Christ in our daily lives but I did not have to advance very far in age to learn quickly that walking and talking are entirely different matters. In Christianity, as well as other contacts (especially politics) because those who claim one thing often disdain the same depending on their company.

I believe the best example I could ever give of how I have been personally treated as a 100% disabled service connected totally blind veteran is in recent years when I was asked to speak to the Downtown Lions Club, Wilmington NC. The pastor of the First Baptist Church in the same city said to me if I had any criticism of the church, I was in the wrong church. The criticism there as in the case of the Lion’s Club is given with the hope that the word empathy might get lost in their vocabulary.

Near my home, which I built 50 years ago, and have lived in since, in the downtown area of the city, there was a large retirement home called the Katherine Kennedy Home. Several of the patients at the home had met me because one often asks me to eat with them on holidays knowing there would be no one there and I did not have any family. The superintendent of the retirement home was a member of the Lion’s Club and he had asked me several times to speak to the club. For many years of my life, after returning from the military, more energetic and egotistical than now, I was known as a speaker, not only at civic clubs but also at high school and college graduations, as well as many other places. After he spoke to me about this several times, I finally decided to speak to the club because they are supposed to be in the forefront in sight and sight saving activity. They have their famous “white cane drive” which raises funds for the blind. It is not easy for a blind person to do anything but with the assistance of my housekeeper we retrieved slides I had made at both the North and South Poles. So I decided to give my presentation on the difference of the Arctic and Antarctic and my visits there. Of course most ice and glaciers look the same but taking much time to analyze the slides to me, we arranged them with me presenting first, the Antarctic and then the Arctic. I numbered and memorized each slide so that the person using the projector would only have to give me the number. On the day of the meeting the retirement home superintendent was unable to pick me up and so a friend, well known Lion statewide, former school superintendent, Wallace West picked me up at my house and took me to the meeting place in a downtown motel. This blind person has never learned to eat delicately so instead of enjoying the wonderful foods the members were enjoying, I just asked for a cup of coffee and sandwich. Wallace presented me as a member of his church having represented the Baptist on a hospital board, and being in the real estate business in the city. He said NOTHING of my disability. I was, as always, dressed like I had just stepped out of GQ Magazine and I thought I gave a wonderful presentation of the difference in the two ends of the world. At the close, I said “I admire your club for your work with the blind and the partial sighted citizens. I want you to know that the slides you have seen were made by a blind man and the man who presented them to you is a totally blind doctor who has served your country”.

When I returned to my house, my housekeeper said “Oh they must have been thrilled to death with your presentation”. I said, and I know this is hard to believe, “not one member of the club, not one person thanked me or said anything like 'you are an inspiration'”.

Yesterday I was asked to another club as I have been asked many times before. Other than church functions, I do not speak anywhere anymore since that one distasteful day at the Lion’s Club. As I told my housekeeper that day, American people do not appreciate anything anymore. The only thing that can excite or inspire them is pornography. I believe I still have the same slides in the same order in the same projector.

Two years ago, I was going up the steps in a public building in the city, a young woman came rushing down the steps, knocked me down, broke my white cane, but on her way to the front door of the building she told one of my friends, who was coming into the YMCA, “please tell the old man I knocked down I am sorry, but I am late for a meeting at church”.

There is no reason for me to exaggerate about either of these instances but it is time for people to realize as Mark Twain once said, “politeness costs so little”. Helen Keller said in her 1904 biography, “no one except another blind person can understand the isolation and cruelty directed towards blind people”.

Getting back to my broken white cane and the Lion’s Club, we sent two messages online to the headquarters of the North Carolina Lions Club (7050 Camp Dogwood Drive, Sherrills Ford NC 28673 and nclions@nclf.org), we never received any response. Of course, one can always find an old white cane at any thrift store but is it not sad that the Lion’s Clubs of NC are not anxious to supply such. When there was no response, I called my VA doctor, Dr Beachampf at the VA hospital in Durham, and asked him if someone there, as they had in the past, with a talking watch, could send me a red tipped white cane. His answer was, “can you imagine the paperwork involved,in a place like this, in getting something like that?” This gives you some impression on how much the military values soldiers who have given their eyes.

Some years ago, remembering the Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, I decided to give the money to establish a Heritage Room for the early founders of the Free Will Baptist, Mount Olive College and denomination. I gave $100,000 as a start on this project and although it is impossible for me to see it, I understand it is greatly appreciated by visitors to the college campus. We, as Americans, have evidently forgotten our heritage, our students have been so “dumbed down” that they know about their own family heritage. In fact, I understand many students have no idea who their own father happens to be. Long ago, it was suggested that the ideas taught in schools one decade, in the next decade will be those expressed in the halls of government.

The early American Indian braves possessed such a heritage that the brave could put his ear down to the ground and almost precisely predict the location and number of buffalo many miles away. We need to look at the idol “television set” to which most people worship everyday and we can easily predict our future.

Does it surprise you that 95% of all inmates in American prisons are male and that 95% of all comic books are purchased by males? Does it surprise you that 50% of all American girls have sexually transmitted diseases when sexual activity has been encouraged in every phase of American life. Does it surprise you that 50% of all students who attend so called “Christian Private Schools” say they do not believe in God? Does it surprise you that 80% of all college students who were reared in church-going “Christian” homes and, when at home, still active in the church, say they “no longer believe in God?” Does it surprise you that 37% of all live births in this country are to single women? Does it surprise you that $42 billion a year is spent on dog food in this country, more than is given to all churches? Then it should not surprise you that we are rapidly becoming a country without empathy and as general Colin Powell in a speech to the RNC, about 10 years ago, said “shame is a lost word in most vocabularies”.